fairysdad
Member
Not entirely sure what it's like at an airport (though Soton Airport Parkway is the only airport parkway station I know of), but I've always looked at it as being a station which is akin to a Park & Ride - easily accessible by car allowing people to park up and take the train from there; not quite like a Park & Ride in that it doesn't always offer a route into town. Tiverton Parkway, for instance, is Tiverton's only station and actually 9 miles or so away from the town so you wouldn't be able to use it as a P&R into Tiverton; Bristol Parkway isn't Bristol's, and I'd imagine there are relatively regular services from there into Bristol TM and therefore Bristol city centre, so you would be able to use it as a P&R into Bristol. (Note to self, don't post on forums after a few drinks, you don't always make sense.)
I've also thought that it's a 'replacement' from the '... Road' station of yore, where a station was named after a settlement that was a distance away from the station - Morchard Road on the North Devon Line springs to mind, about 3 miles away from it's namesake Morchard Bishop (although it'd be a good candidate for the 'places with Station in their name' thread as a settlement has built up around the station named 'Morchard Road'). (Also slightly pertinent to this, is that Tiverton Parkway was a replacement for Tiverton Junction which was originally named Tiverton Road!)
(Of course, not all '... Road' stations are named because of this; a lot are named such (like the Metropolitan Railway's 'Edgware Road') because they are on a street with that name...)
